Russian scientists believe they have found a wholly new type of bacteria in the subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica, the RIA Novosti news agency reported on March 7.

The samples obtained from the underground lake in May 2012 contained a bacteria which bore no resemblance to existing types, said Sergei Bulat of the genetics laboratory at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics.

"After putting aside all possible elements of contamination, DNA was found that did not coincide with any of the well-known types in the global database," he said.

Bulat said that the interest surrounded one particular form of bacteria whose DNA was less than 86 percent similar to previously existing forms. "In terms of work with DNA this is basically zero. A level of 90 percent usually means that the organism is unknown." He said it was not even possible to find the genetic descendants of the bacteria.

"If this had been found on Mars everyone would have undoubtedly said there is life on Mars. But this is bacteria from Earth." Bulat said that new samples of water would be taken from Lake Vostok during a new expedition in May. "If we manage to find the same group of organisms in this water we can say for sure that we have found new life on Earth that exists in no database," Bulat said.

Bulat said that the interest surrounded one particular form of bacteria whose DNA was less than 86 percent similar to previously existing forms. to put this in perspective, we share 50% of our DNA with a banana.

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

Sounds fishy to me. Seems like they would have to be contaminated with something that qualified as strange to get the weird DNA percentage thing to happen. I'm guessing we'll have a new conspiracy theory by the end of the weekend. In the meantime, don't drink water bottled in Antarctica.

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Anyone can beat around the bush. But unless you have permission from the bush, you probably shouldn't.